“I moved back to London on my own at 15, carried on going to school, and started posting cover songs online.”
— Dua Lipa
Dua Lipa said this in a 2017 interview with The Cut, talking about how she moved from Kosovo to London at 15 by herself to pursue music. She posted cover songs on YouTube with almost no audience before eventually signing with Warner Bros. in 2014. It shows the gap between ambition and recognition is usually a lot longer than people imagine.
I was 15 and I genuinely had no backup plan. Kosovo felt like it was holding me back from what I knew I had to do, so I just went. Alone. No manager, no deal, no one telling me it would work out. I filmed covers in my bedroom and put them on YouTube and most of them got maybe 200 views. But I kept going because stopping felt worse than failing. People ask how I stayed motivated and honestly I just had nothing else. Music was the only thing I wanted bad enough to be embarrassed for.